There’s a focus bug in the latest Ubuntu (basically, in the Compiz package, but who cares about specifics ;-). Basically, if you select “focus follows mouse”, your mouse will uniquely determine the focus. Always. Previously, the mouse would only change focus on window entry.
In other words: Alt+Tab only works in the new Ubuntu if the mouse isn’t over any window. Which is usually not the case.
Bug report here. I hope it gets fixed soon, it annoys me daily – I use Alt+Tab. Often. :s
So, in between the (by now) terribly outdated (two holidays ago by now :s) Tenerife epic, an actual current update!
I’m right now in Darmstadt, at CASED for a month. I bravely decided to take the new computer I got here and set it up with the new ubuntu. Plenty of woes so far (why on earth does the external monitor function out-of-the-box on the live USB stick, but it’s a royal PITA to get it working once installed.
For that matter, since when does Ubuntu forget to let me boot into my windows? I must have done something wrong with the install — but it used to be easy, now it’s hard to figure out?!
Le anyway, mail clients. Trusty old evolution somehow didn’t show all my regular folders. Okay, thunderbird then. The same damn folders missing again – wtf?
Okay, turns out to be a matter of “subscribing” to the desired folders. Well, how about all of them, by default? Apparently, neither client did that out of the box. But it fixes the issue in both… (thunderbird: file > subscribe ; evolution: Folders > subscribe). Weird, good to remember.
Where were we? We’d climbed up to Teide, I danced on the volcano, and then we descended to the top of the cable cart. The route we planned (to Pico Viejo and beyond) was closed, so we decided to abort the plan and take the cable cart down. On the way down the cart operator pointed out some native mountain sheep — but I didn’t spot them. At the cable cart base station, we treated ourselves to a brunch and sat down to figure our plans out.
During brunch, Aga said there were basically two options: back to Los Cristianos and beach out the rest of the holidays, or to go to somewhere called ‘Los Gigantes’. Were we to go to Los Gigantes, we could also go to something or somewhere called “Masca”. Apparently, it was gorgeous and wonderful and amazing and more!
As it turned out, we didn’t have to make the choice for a while just yet. I innocently asked how we’d get there. “Hitchhiking! Or, if that doesn’t work, we’ll take a bus.”
Errr… hitchhiking? Le what? Never done that in my life. Then again, never too old to try something new :)
The bus schedule was rather… disappointing. There was about one bus per day, and it was going near (not to) Los Cristianos. To go by bus to Los Gigantes, we had to take this bus (which left from somewhere sort of nearby) at 4pm. Did I mention it was roughly 10am? Even if hitchhiking hadn’t been suggested, I would’ve probably opted for it… or for walking.
We left the base station and walked to the main road. In line with our desire to hitch a ride, we were walking on the right (non-left) side of the road. The first few cars passed… grmbl. Then, one slowed down a lot, and we both thought “success”! But apparently he then saw our backpacks and raced off again. GRMBL!
Anyway, the primary plan was to hitch a ride directly to Los Gigantes. Failing that (which was likely), we’d hitch a ride to the point where the road to Los Gigantes forked off from the road to Los Cristianos / the beach. I heard a car coming, and we both turned and put on our bestetest smiles. Amazingly, the car pulled over! We were about to successfully have hitched a ride! AMAZING!
For me, this was a completely new experience. Luckily, Agnieszka had done this before, and she struck up a conversation quickly. The Danish couple that had picked us up were about our age, and had rented a car to explore Tenerife. For a brief while, that sounded quite appealing to me. Rent a car, and explore the country side together with your girl. You could find all these wonderful spots … hmmms. The parts where we had walked, were inaccessible by car. And they were pretty damn amazing. And actually, with this car, there were some nice views too, but we were mostly speeding through them, not really having the time to admire them. Upon reflection, the hiking sounded slightly better.
Since the friendly Danes were heading in the direction of Los Cristianos, we asked to be dropped off at the fork. There happened to be a toursistic stopping place there, because of the nice view of the lava field leading up to mighty Teide. As you can see, we ditched the hitchhiking plan for a while and acted as tourists :)
According to the bus plan, there ought to be a bus stop around here, so if we failed to hitch a second ride, we could always make it to Los Cristianos.
After a round of taking photos, our collective thumbs had had enough of a break, so we broke them out, all fresh and shiny. Car number one…. shiny thumb, admire the shiny thumb… no. Car number two… number three… no luck. After 40 or so minutes, we figured it might have something to do with the location. There were lots of tourist walking around, it wouldn’t be immediately obvious that some of them were in need of a ride. Following that logic, we hiked some ways up the fork, waiting for a car to Los Gigantes. A few came, accelerated and passed. Grmbl. We took some more photos (it’s a photo-blog! :), and our hope of reaching Los Gigantes dampened.
By noon, we had walked back to the viewpoint and tried again from there – with the idea that any ride is better than no ride. Still, no luck… or was there? A car pulled over… was that for us… it could be… I went over, but the couple was Spanish, so I waved Aga in and let her figure it out. By then I figured they’d stopped for some photos, not for some tourists. Turns out I was right :s
Aga seemed quite down by this. I realised that a young girl hitchhiking is different from a bloke hitchhiking, and again different from a couple hitchhiking. Probably, had she been by herself, she would’ve by now hitched a ride. I almost felt like apologising… Ah well, couldn’t be helped. Plus, we were having fun together. Up to the point where she seemed to see the hope of Los Gigantes / Masca evaporate into thin air.
Figuring “what the hey”, I proposed we just started walking to Los Gigantes. I reckoned that a still-standing hitchhiker might be less appealing to pick up than one that is already hiking. Well, the second one sort of radiates an air of “you can make my life easy or not, but I’m going to get there.” as opposed to the “make my life easy please?” view. Well, pure speculation of course, and far-fetched reasoning, but enough to convince me to start moving, and it was good to not stand around anymore.
So we started in the direction of Los Gigantes. A few cars passed without acknowledging our thumbs. We polished them a bit and kept walking. Another car approached, we raised our shiny thumbs, et voila! Magic happened!
It turned out to be the Spanish couple who had earlier not picked us up, but stopped for photos. They weren’t heading to Los Gigantes, but they were going a short way in our direction. Grateful for any forward motion, we joined. This time, Aga was the only one doing the talking – Spanish is not my forté. They dropped us at a rest place besides the road, and we went bravely on. Again we showed our prettiest thumbs at any cars coming our way, and if they passed, we silently berated them and kept marching on.
It wasn’t long before another car pulled over. This time we were picked up by a friendly Swedish couple, I’d estimate the age of my parents. We had a fun chat, especially when the gentleman turned out to be working in IT as well. We talked shop for a bit, until the signs from both ladies clearly indicated a change of subject. :)
They were going to Puerto de Santiago, which was immediately next to Los Gigantes. More accurately phrased, “Los Gigantes” is a series of impressive rock formations protruding into the ocean, and also the name of the harbour region of Puerto de Santiago (which is next to the rocks). The friendly Swedes dropped us of in the village, near a sign pointing to the harbour. within 20 minutes, we were there, and on our way to find an apartment.
Aga had a particular location in mind, and we did find them in the end. The apartments were at about 1 minute from the harbour… if you crawled slowly. The lady at the desk told us that there were apartments available, but they were still being cleaned. Recall that we hiked up Teide earlier this day, and had been walking in warm weather quite a bit… We were both ready for a shower. That they could offer us in the mean time, so we had a shower. Afterwards, Aga wanted to go to the swimming pool. I wasn’t that interested to begin with, and didn’t feel too comfortable leaving our luggage there. Moreover, the room ought to be done in about 10 minutes, so why not?
And indeed, after a little pushing we got into the room and dropped our stuff. Our balcony overlooked the harbour, and not from far. We collected ourselves a bit, and then we went out to explore the town and grab a bite to eat. While exploring the town, I suggested tapas – that is a typical spanish dish and we hadn’t had the occasion yet. So at the village square, we asked if the bar had tapas. They said “yes”, but should’ve said no. We ordered “papas locos”, which I expected to be potatoes (papas arugadas, our favourite Tenerifian dish by now, consists only of salty potatoes). Imagine our surprise when we were served french fries with cheese and ham. And when I write “with cheese and ham”, I mean “with small cuts of cheese and ham sprinkled all through the french fries”. This was by far the weirdest dish either of us ever ate.
While more happened this day, I’ll leave it at this. That way, at least you can ask me about the Rincon De Antonio, next time we meet. Hasta Luego!
PS: Yes I did touch the water in the evening, after dinner. Heighest point in Spain in the morning, lowest point in the evening. Fun, no?
This is a rough impression of our route today. If you follow this link, you can click to satellite view, and then you can roughly see the terrain — also interesting, I’d say.
[iframe http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=p&msa=0&msid=212454888926572938696.0004a173123cab71923d5&ll=28.273317,-16.635962&spn=0.007559,0.022488&z=15&output=embed 460 220]
The Italians in our room woke up at 5. AM. There should be a law against that. The first two or three tried to be quiet, and I could’ve slept through that. Then more woke, and more, till they were all awake and any pretense at silence was a distant memory. There should be a law against that, really!
Naturally, at 5.30 in the morning, it takes you a while to admit defeat. The bed is warm, you are still half-snoozing, so no, you have no intention of getting up. In the end, common sense prevails, and a not-so-sleepy part of you is aware of this, but your sleeping self just pushes this notion away. Anyway, after fighting this losing battle for a while, I figured to take a bathroom break. Perhaps it’d be better afterwards? I washed a bit, brushed teeth and came back. It was better! A lot! almost all the Italians had left the room. Except for one old guy, who was lying there sick and … yes, he just threw up. K-bye-thx!
So, by 6ish, we were getting dressed. There was a bit of confusing and milling about, the usual indecisiveness when there’s a large group. Or maybe people were just reluctant to leave the warmth of the shelter for the harsh coldness of El Teide at 3200m up in the night. I got bored waiting inside (you know my attention span? Exactly), so I went outside. The reluctant people had the right idea, I decided, but it was too late. We were leaving. Aga bravely turned on her headlight and told me to follow her, while she followed the bombaderos.
I did. For the first 100m. And then reality bit us in the … – going uphill at these heights, I was faster than Aga. So I took the lead, following a bombadero. It was dark, it was cold, there was more snow than before on the path, and I didn’t have a light. Heck, I didn’t even have mountain shoes! Nor gloves! So, I kept close to the guy I was following. When I looked back after 3 minutes, I noticed Aga was a little over 50m behind. Crap.
Reality sometimes slaps you hard in the face. Reality came looking for me then and there, and smugly pointed out the following:
Basically, the way I was going worked: keeping up with the firemen was (relatively) simple, and being in a group of about 6 people made the whole thing seem a lot less scary. I could just tag on, concentrate on stepping, and get there. Ditching the group and waiting for Aga… hmmms. We already knew we were accustomed to hiking up at vastly different speeds. Moreover, we didn’t know the route. Neither did the firemen, but somehow, in a group it’s okay.
So yeah. I looked back once, blew a kiss, let out a heavy sigh and marched on. Not a happy moment, but I saw no way I’d get to the top unless it was exactly as I was doing now.
The views on the way were great. The lights from a village in the distance (Puerto de la Cruz?) were beautifully visible in the serene vista. There was this pre-dawn calm to the world… you could see the hills surrounding Teide in the moon/starlight, the observation post far off on top of a hill, clouds over the sea… It was gorgeous. Too bad I missed most of it.
You see, I was climbing. Climbing my ass off, actually. Oh, the slope wasn’t too steep — physically I kept up splendidly. But there was this tiny thing: the absence of light. I didn’t have a headlight. I had no light. So I kept real close to whoever was in front of me — usually stepping directly in the place he vacated. I was rather focused with that. Not that it was completely dark, far from it. But we were on a mountain. There were rocks all over the place. This was not nice asphalt. In daylight, you’d keep your attention to the ground while walking here. And this wasn’t daytime. So I kept my eyes on the ground, instead of the wonderful views.
Soon, we encountered vast patches of ice and snow – far larger than any we’d seen on the way to the shelter. Too large to go around, and moreover, the firemen were all plodding along straight over them. At first, it pissed me off. I really didn’t have the proper equipment (shoes) for this. My shoes were fine for hiking up rocks if there was a path, but this was brutal. Ice all over, and next to no profile on the soles. Somehow, the shoes managed fine. Might’ve had something to do with the extra weight of the backpack. Plus, I was very, very committed. No clue where I was, no clue how to get down, not really a clue how to get up except to walk straight up to the highest point… yep, I was definitely committed to this group.
And that worked out nicely! In the beginning, we didn’t chat so much, but my three words of incorrect Spanish broke the ice and they happily rattled off something back to me. Well, when we stopped, that is. Which was infrequent — only twice for a break, and a few times to guess the direction. Once or twice, I overtook someone who was taking a break. A “Todo Bueno, Amigo” I could easily manage — I had energy to spare! Just not really grip with my feet. Or a headlight.
But I could see sufficiently well. I did, at one point, suddenly saw my right leg vanish rapidly into what seemed a solid surface. Snow covering a gap between rocks. I was a bit startled, but less so even then the firemen. After all, nothing bad happened. I don’t even think I was bruised.
All in all, I even began to feel a bit cocky. Look at all them macho men here! Wearing gloves, wearing real shoes, walking with hiking sticks… Pfffft!
Naturally, at that point we encountered the steepest plane of ice yet. Going up wouldn’t be easy. But we weren’t going up. We were crossing it horizontally.
Now to make this perfectly clear: this was at an angle. A rather steep angle. My sneakers had hardly any grip. There was no path on the ice whatsoever. And the men before me didn’t create one either. I was walking, and every step I feared I’d slide down. Which was not a dead drop, thankfully, but it would most assuredly not make it to my list of “happy moments”. Again, after 40 meters of slip-free, careful hiking, I became cocky. This time, I actually became overconfident. There is only one punishment for that: pain.
So my foot slipped, and I caught myself with my bare hands. On the ice. The words “not pleasant” might be a trifle understated. I was angry with myself (for becoming overconfident). Stupid. Smart would’ve been to focus fully on my steps. In other words: soon my hands had a rendez-vous with the ice for a second time. This time, I could feel them throb afterwards. Nevertheless, no skin broke, so I was still good. I kept closer attention, made it across, and eventually, we found something akin to a path again.
That was such a relief at this juncture. It meant we weren’t hopelessly lost. Of course we’d get to the top, and it would be magnificent, but I was already dreading the way back. Up on ice is a lot easier than down. However, the path was quite a bit simpler. We continued the climb up, and finally we found ourselves on the top roughly an hour after we started! Hooray!
There were the obligatory cheers, celebratory hugs and group- and individual photos (as you can see). Moreover, I did what any self-conscious Dutchman with a slight familiarity with Dutch music would do: I danced. After all, El Teide is a volcano! :)
That made me happy for a bit. But then the battery of my camera ran out, and I felt the cold. And it was cold! So far, we had been steadily climbing. Moreover, I had been carrying a backpack of a good 10kg. I really wasn’t cold before. Sure I felt it, but as long as we were out of the wind it was okay. Wind, that was the main problem here. The funny thing is, that El Teide is really quite a bit like a pyramid. There is one top, and everything around it just drops away further and further. So if you’re standing on the top, you’re exposed. And there’s wind. Because there is nothing stopping the wind, no matter where it is coming from.
I realise it’s a straightforward observation – it’s obvious! Trust me, being confronted with it at 7.45 and getting colder and colder is different than an armchair observation in a warm house. Luckily, slightly below the very top, the path turned behind some boulders. There was some relief from the cold wind there. I went there, rubbed my hands and waited a bit to warm up. Then I switched my simcards (necessary since my phone had been accidentally on, and an incorrect pin had apparently been accidentally entered three times…), and send a text to my girl. Darn, now that the exhilaration of making this insane climb had worn off, I realised how worried I was. I just hoped she had hooked up with another group – there were plenty of people leaving. I huddled together with Warren and the Polish guy (and the Polish guy’s girlfriend), and while they were enjoying the sight of the sun rising over the horizon, I was fretting and playing with my phone. Oh I did glimpse eastward, don’t worry, but still.
/preview/176-small.jpg "Hugo, the highest man in all of Spain! (flash)")
10-15 agonising minutes later, Aga showed up. She seemed cold and tired (or was that just in the eye of the beholder? Probably a mix of both :), but I was happy to see her there, and proud of her to have made it up. I know it must’ve been hard for her, but she made it. She even posed for a picture in the cold winds on top, as you can see. Afterwards, we went back down. The firemen were going back to the shelter, but there was no way I was going to go down over all that ice!!
We went down to the top station of the cable car, to warm up a bit and find a route onwards. There, we learned that the path to Picco Vecchio was still closed due to snow. They would check it later today, and perhaps open it today, perhaps later this week.
We politely declined, and decided to take the cable cart down and have a rest and breakfast in the restaurant. By the time we got down, it wasn’t even 10 in the morning!
What happened afterwards you can (eventually) read in the next entry.
Today’s stats: ± 14km hike; start: 11:00, 2153m; brunch: 12:30-14:00, 2356m; finish: 19:35, 3261m
We woke up after a good night’s sleep, and I for one was glad we had decided to sleep in. An 8hr, 18km hike uphill (100m ascending, 250m descending) is quite some effort for me, apparently. Moreover, the primary effects of the brutal sun of yesterday were rather apparent, on both on me and on Aga.
And I can add that the secondary effects (that is, the burning sensation) was present too. Admittedly, it was all doable, but it wasn’t a stroll in the park. I was very happy that we had a hotel room with bath tub, foot bath, mini bar, restaurant and (the best part) decent beds! I also think it helped us a lot, we were both more or less done for.
So, this morning, we took things relatively slowly. Moreover, we diligently prepared for the sun, me by applying copious amounts of the wrong stuff — foot cream on my face :). We checked out by 12, and skipped breakfast. The idea was to have a brunch at the base station of the cable car (“Teleferique”). It was only about 2km away, and there was a asphalt road running there, so we should be there in half an hour. Right?
Guess again. No seriously, go on, guess :)
I’ll give you some time to ponder it, while you look at today’s goal — which, incidentally, we’re approaching so far from the right, that it’s nowhere near on this photo.
Bingo. Since we started off easy, and figured we had sufficient time today, we took the nice route and not the asphalt road. Our reasoning was that it would be prettier, nicer to walk, and much less cars to dodge. We were right on all accounts. Hooray! In addition, it was also more sandy – more beachy, if you will. You know, the dense stuff, which saps your energy. You can almost feel the ground siphoning off energy from your legs. Before the start of this day’s hike, I think both of us silently envisioned the first part as the relaxed 30 minutes before waking up. Not quite, apparently. It took a while (about an hour and a half, as a matter of fact), but we finally made it back to asphalt. By then, a solid ground was a blessing.
We were also right below the base station of the Teleferique. Nice! Not so nice part: it was quite a bit higher up, and we needed to take the long way round to get there. Luckily, this time we were on asphalt, so we made good time and in about 25 minutes, we finally found us at the restaurant. Yup, somewhat behind schedule, but okay: breakfast time! By then it was actually lunch time, which was extra nice, seeing as the restaurant provided a nice, hot lunch buffet. We dipped in, sat down, took off shoes and socks (and earned ourselves some funny looks at that), and took it easy for about an hour and a half. Well, we earned it, no?
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After that break, we treated ourselves to an ice cream and walked back down to the main road (around 14:00). We followed the main road until we hit the start of the track up El Teide. It was “light”, as in “doable by a car”. The road was also wide enough for a car, as you can see from the pictures. Immediately at the start, we were confronted with our current elevation: even though it was 25 degrees and we were hiking in shorts, the shadows still held snow! A short while later, we had elevated enough for the landscape to open up,
and wide vistas became available. It was truly gorgeous. I have to admit, that I was beginning to worry a bit about our schedule. We started upon this wide track at roughly 16:00, and the information sign at the beginning warned that it was a 4.5 hours hike to the refuge. That would mean we’d be hiking up the mountain in the dark – something I was definitely not looking forward to, even though with this road it’d be okay.
Of course, to compound my worries, Aga started showing signs of height-induced fatigue. She was having a hard time breathing. That’s at least what she said it felt like – I couldn’t (and can’t) relate to it, as I didn’t have any problems at all. It was weird to see the sporty girl slowing down to the point where I was actually making better progress than her. I took the opportunity to deprive her of her camera, and kept myself behind her by starting to take pictures whenever I threatened to overtake her. It was fun, and it led to quite a number of pictures (you can do the clickety thingy to see ’em). Unfortunately, tiny photos do not do justice to wide landscapes. Aga said she’d look into stitching some together for a few landscape views, so perhaps.
While hiking up along the road, we were at one point overtaken by a pair of runners. They were wearing running-only gear, with a bottle at the back. Apparently, they were doing some serious training… the road constantly went up. Hard stuff! At any rate, we kept up, and didn’t see them again while the road kept going up. By now, we both had changed into something warmer, as the wind was too cool for comfort, and at this road, we were just too exposed. There was no shelter – I diligently applied sun cream (not foot cream – once was enough ;) at every rest stop. The snow was becoming more annoying. Where first it was an interesting phenomena on the side, at times it now was running over the road to such an extent that the only way onwards was over the snow. As I was wearing sneakers, and as we still had to get to the hard part, I really didn’t want to get my feet wet. Luckily enough, the snow wasn’t melting, and my feet stayed dry.
Then we came upon the steep uphill part. There was a clear break: the car-passable part of the road ended, and a footpath began. As you can see from the height profiles below, the slope of the first part was ± 500m per ± 11km, while the slope of part deux was roughly ± 450m per ± 2.4km(!). Le ouch. Oh, and there was a new information sign. The sign gave no duration, only a severe warning: only do this if you’re in top-notch condition! I felt up to it, but by now Aga was clearly not having an easy time… and it was about six o’clock. Ah well, nothing for it now, we were committed. So, up we went.
After about half an hour, we encountered the runners again, on the way down. They had actually ran up this steep ascent?! Holy cow, that’s some training! They gave us an estimate of how long we still had to go. Actually, they gave two: 25 minutes and 40 minutes. In the end, both estimates were off by about more or less one hour. It got colder, Aga got grumpier and more quiet, it got darker, and there was little I could do. The road was, incidentally, a lot more adventurous now: far steeper, less wide, and more snow. All in all, a lot more interesting.
In the end, we made it to the refuge. Hooray! I had hoped for a shower, and I expected that there would be almost nobody. Wrong on both accounts! There was only cold water and no showers available, and the place was packed!
There was a group of about 10 Italians, with whom we were sharing the room. Moreover, there was a large contingent of “Bombaderos” – firemen from one of the other Canarian Islands. About 30 of them. All in all, the refuge was about full! Luckily we called ahead – something I hadn’t thought necessary, but this time, I was happy we had done so.
Despite our lateness, we weren’t the last to show up. When we were having dinner, we joined a table where a Polish guy and a Brit, who had come in after us, were sitting. The Brit was shivering. He introduced himself as Warren, and didn’t have a bite to eat. He expected that there’d be something here. Naturally, we couldn’t leave him like that. Aga had prepared a wonderful insta-cream soup, which genuinely filled. On top of that, we had our emergency sandwiches from Hotel Parador, in case we went crazy with hiking (to the top of Teide and down again in one day). Despite Warren’s adamant refusal, we supplied him, and you could see the life flowing in him as the soup warmed him from the inside.
After dinner, we took a few photos of the incredible views (see also below, click for the big link), including the mighty shadow of El Teide him(her?)self. In the setting sun, this shadow extended all the way to the next island (Las Palmas). Mind you, that’s a few hours by boat from the coast, and we were nowhere near the coast. Later, I tried to take some pics of the fantastically clear night sky. It more or less worked, but I find the pictures disappointing. They look more like digital artifacts than the wondrous clear night sky where stars slowly came to life as the sun set. Yes, it was enough to make me poetic :)
Before trying to sleep in a room filled with noisy Italians, I figured to make sure we’d have some water for the next day. So far, we had taken four bottles of water every day. It was too much every day, though never by very much. Problem: there was a warning sign against consuming the water at the refuge. Solution: cook the water, put the pan outside till sufficiently cooled. It still took a while, despite it being dastardly cold outside in the night. But then again: clear sky, 3250m above sea level… I guess there’s a reason it was cold :)
Start: ±11:00, 2153m
Brunch: 12:30-14:00, 2356m
Arrival: 19:35, 3261m
Total distance: ±14km.
Height profile for today in two parts, because the tool couldn’t handle it in one go :s. The easy part (2153m – ±2800m):
(Can you spot where our brunch was? It’s at the first peak :)
And the not-so-easy part (±2800m – ±3250m) :
And finally, a rough sketch of the trail we hiked (especially off in the beginning, it’s hard to see the route on Google maps there):
[iframe http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=p&msa=0&msid=212454888926572938696.0004a0a59305abdf345df&ll=28.251469,-16.617336&spn=0.056705,0.036478&z=14&output=embed 425 750]View Tenerife Hike day 2 in a larger map
Note: total distance estimate is based on this map, while for the height profiles, I had to redo all this clicking in another map applet :s
Today’s stats: wake up height: ±30m, hike start: 1377m, hike finish: 2153m, highest point: 2374m, hike length: ±19km, hike start: 10:30, hike finish: 18:30
We woke up, and packed our things. This involved me swapping my finished book with a fresh one that was left behind in the apartment: Ron Hubbard’s “To The Stars” – in Dutch(!). That’s actually why I had few qualms about swapping the book – I mean, there were other books in Dutch, and who in their right minds (apart from me) is going to read a Dutch book while on Tenerife, near the beach?
The evening before, Aga had suggested getting up early and try to hitchhike — buses on Sunday are very infrequent here, and today we’d have a long hike, so the sooner we start, the better. However, reality prevailed, and we slept nicely and cosily. Till seven thirty. Can you spot the difference between my regular style of holidays and this type of holidays? I reckoned you could :)
After finishing the packing, we checked out, and picked up some supplies in the local tiny mercado: four 1.5 liter bottles of water, and some buns, ham and cheese for lunch. We then made it to the bus stop with plenty of time to spare – which gave us time to grab a quick breakfast across the street. Again, I realised how convenient it is that Aga spea
ks Spanish fluently — and that she understands Spanish culture. I probably would have had quite a fight with the waitress over my order. It was a simple hot bun with molten cheese, but they have a specific name for hot buns (or somesuch) in Spanish, which confuses the hell out of me. Not Aga though: she happily chats away in Spanish, and we’re quickly fed and back at the bus stop.
We got off the bus in Vilaflor, and now take the time to decently adjust the backpacks. I’ve never hiked with all my holiday-stuff on me before, nor ever with a trekking backpack. There’s all these straps and buckles and whatnots that can be tweaked, fiddled with and adjusted. You can even change where the shoulder straps are attached to the backpack! This is necessary too, as I’m taller than Aga. Hmms, this is fun! I fasten the belt-buckle so that the weight is on my hips. I’ll be tweaking this a bit more, but for now it seems to work reasonably. Aga dashes into a shop to pick up a bottle of coke, and we’re off!
And 200 meters further, we’re greeted by a wonderful view (see first picture). After a bit of a search through the village for the start of our route, we find a hiking map on the central square:
(Not our full route, this is merely the start.) In addition, the friendly local tourist office supplied some signposts — we are on our way! There’s plenty of gorgeous views – see the above photos and these few:
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After a long and gorgeous hike through quite varying terrain sorts, we circle Montaña de Guajara and take a longish break there. Taking shoes and socks off, and sitting back in the sun. Grabbing a bite to eat, and waiting for the group of loud Spanish youngsters to continue hiking, so that when we start, we can hike in peace. During our break, we even make a friend (see the photo)! Unfortunately, one thing we overlooked (we were tired, but still): me and sun, us don’t get along. I don’t really notice it while we’re taking the break, but the sun is burning down on me. Even the top of my feet gets burned! And I did put on sun screen all the time:
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So when we continue, I am burnt and don’t feel too great. On top of this, the first part is downhill (or down slope, if you prefer), which is the first time I notice the lack of proper hiking shoes. I keep slipping. So I have to constantly be on my guard, while I’m feeling rather low on energy. (on a sidenote: this is cheating! we’re supposed to hike up Teide, and that is higher than where we are right now… and we’re going down?? Aw man!)
All in all, by the time we hit the main road, I’m drained. The views are still splendid:
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But I’m being grumpy and sullen now. Luckily, shadow helps, and after several spots in the shade, I’ve recuperated to the point of not grating too much on Aga’s patience (I hope — she didn’t beat me up that night, so I’m guessing I was improving to the point of bearableness). Moreover, this is the final part, it can’t be far now! just a few hundred meters, right? At most two km?
Wrong! It’s a solid 3.5 km — which in this terrain, and given our fatigue and desire to take photos, translates into a hike of more than one hour. Ouch. Didn’t see that one coming. When we get to our hotel, Aga has some energy left to jump into the shower. Me? I just crash on the bed. I can feel my body being warm all over the place. After some friendly suggestion from Aga regarding the odeur I am wafting about, I decide to drag my warm ass from the bed and jump in the shower. I figured I’d have a cold shower, but somehow I don’t quite get there — the warm water feels so soothing. So, halfway through showering, I plug the drain and fill up the bath, and recline in there for half an hour. When I get out, I feel quite refreshed again, and ready to go on! My enthusiasm is slightly tempered by Agnieszka, who fell asleep while I was bathing.
So when we go down for dinner in the restaurant (incidentally, the hotel is in the middle of nowhere: no shop, no nothing, so the only options for food and drink are the hotel), we inquire to check-out times and order sandwiches and coke for the day after (the coke (in case you’re confused: coca cola, not the drug) kept Aga’s spirits up today, so we figure it’s best to stock up on it. We’re all set, and go to the restaurant and place our orders. It takes a while before our food arrives, and suddenly we find ourselves in the restaurant, with a view of Teide and the surrounding natural park, at dusk. Aga dashes off to get her camera to snap some pics, while I patiently wait. She did take a few beautiful photos (see below), but not at the restaurant. By the time she returns, it’s just a tad too dark for decent photos.
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Despite our preparations for an early start, we realise it is an incredible challenge — and that after this day’s strenuous hike… about 19km, starting at 1377 meters altitude, finishing at 2153, with a max height of 2374 in between when we skirted Montaña Guajara (see the height profile for details)… well, I’m not sure if hiking another 20km tomorrow, including a hike up to the highest point in Spain, is a realistic idea.
We come up with wild alternatives: take the cable cart, go up, to top, back down by cable cart, hike to refuge. Et cetera. In the end, we decide to hike to the refuge tomorrow, and then the day after to leave early. If you’re sleeping in the refuge, you’re allowed on the top without a permit — as long as you clear off before 9:00. (That is 9am, aka 9 o’clock in the morning — this is different from my regular style of holidays, I keep telling you… :)
After Friday night’s frantic packing, it’s off to the bus. Finally! The Flibco airport shuttle leaves from Luxembourg station at 9:25, so we’re up at about 8. Nevertheless, by the time we’re ready to go, it’s close to 9. Luckily we catch a bus to the station, and we make our way to the station with enough time to spare to pick up a paper and a Kakuro booklet before we head out to the Flibco quay.
Then, the weirdest thing happens. A Flibco bus shows up from the direction of the city center, and passes the station without stopping! I’m getting slightly worried here… there’s only one Flibco bus scheduled around this hour. While I’m hesitating to call (fully realising that if that was our bus, then we just missed our plane), another Flibco bus shows up and does stop at the station. Phew!
With that, our journey has begun. And what a journey! Two and a half hours by bus to Brussels Charleroi, and then another four and a half hours of flight to Tenerife! Factoring in the transition times, we’ll be traveling most of the day.
In the beginning, I try to sleep. Agnieszka manages, but I fail, to the point I pick my book (the first book in the Dresden filesseries). I’m reading, and reading, and reading… hmmms, more than halfway through… hmmms… ah, there is the airport. Finally! We
freshen up a bit and then, Aga insists on checking our luggage. We unpack our bags and wear just about everything, then weigh the bags at an unused check-in counter. Both of us are below the 10 kilo limit. Furthermore, we check the size restrictions at one of the abundant test locations. Check! We’re compliant with the insanely strict cabin luggage requirements, so next we go through security. Aga insisted, knowing that they’re checking bags right before boarding, and charging the hell out of you if you’re not complying. After security, I spot several officials doing exactly that! They’re checking carry-on luggage for size and weight — Aga was right, they’re playing dirty here! Luckily, we’re prepared for their tricks :)
After security, we grab a bite at the overpriced airport catering, and I check the tax-free stores. Hmmms, more books! That might be a good idea. I find one which is not too lame, but the queue is too long for comfort, so I give up. We make our way to the plane, and get with the last remaining passengers. For me, quite a change from normal. Turns out to be quite a relief — especially since we’re flying with RyanAir. The incessant jingle is not played to annoyance, merely since after we’re comfortably seated, the plane leaves within 5 minutes.
Aga and I make fun of the safety demonstration by predicting and copying the moves. Oh, the personnel always means well, but after traveling 4.5 hours, we’re in a silly mood :) Soon after take off, I take my book… … … and finish it. I try to make some head / tails out of the simplest of Kakuro, but it’s different than the one I have on the DS (in layman’s terms: no can do without cheating :s).
Eventually, we land. Since we’re only packing cabin luggage, and as we’re seated near the back door (being amongst the last passengers in), we’re actually surprisingly quickly off again, and we soon find our bus. This is the first time I witness Agnieszka’s proficiency at Spanish. From the sound of it, it comes to her far more easy than English (caveat: I can be notoriously anal about English). Half an hour later, we get off the bus in Los Cristianos, and we try to find our way using a google maps print out. Luckily, I suck at reading maps, well, at least right then and there. After a nice touristic stroll through the area around our apartment, we find we took the most indirect route possible (I kid you not). From the bus to the apartment took us about 30 minutes, but on the way back we pass the bus station within 5 minutes…
Well, walking 30 min with all your luggage is fun, no? ;-)
We check in, and they want/need to keep our passports for 20 min — I guess to make copies. I hate that sort of thing, it is my identity document. I feel sort of naked without it, but okay, let’s first explore the apartment. The man at the reception said it would be a tad large. It is. Check out the sights and the movie! Yes, you saw that right: two balconies! EAT THAT!! Man, we’re in Spain, off the coast of Africa, the weather is fine, and we’re ready to relax!!
And we do. After freshening up for a while, and changing into more appropriate attire, we head out for dinner, picking our ids up on the way. After a short confusion, it turns out Aga had a specific restaurant at Playa de las Americas in mind. If you check the map, you’ll spot the non-negligable distance from Los Cristianos to Playa de las Americas. That caught me off guard. After clearing that one up, and having a pleasant stroll along the seaside before dinner, we find the restaurant.
Aga surprises the waiter by offering the 2 euros she was short last time she ate here. The waiter surprises us by speaking Dutch with me. I surprise Aga by being ebullient, and so we’re all surprised. After a nice meal by the sea side (Aga found her favourite dish, with the obligatory Canarian “papas” (potatoes), I had something mediocre — but the wine was nice), I didn’t feel like walking back. So we went away from the beach, looking for a taxi. When we hit main street, Las Americas, there were all sorts of inviting sounds from the various bars. While I didn’t feel like a long walk, I could definitely sit down a bit on our first night in Tenerife with a drink and some life entertainment!
At one point I spotted a karaoke sign, and I was convinced. Karaoke is like the surefire guarantee of amusement — as long as you add a dash of alcohol and a lack of inhibitions and shame :) Of course, we came as spectators!
And what a view it was. There was a drag queen on stage, making no effort whatsoever to hide the masculinity of “her” voice. “She” was hosting the karaoke fun, and as that function requires in a bar full of half-drunk English, “her” speech was rather… uncouth. “I’ll put you through a window with that filthy mouth of yours, darling!” :)
Well, if that doesn’t raise a smile, I guess you had to be there.
We didn’t stay too long, but long enough to enjoy us. There wasn’t any really terrible performance — a bit of a letdown, if you ask me. Karaoke should be drunk people that really don’t want be reminded of what they did the day after. Nevertheless, we had a good time. Aga even threw the rose she was given at the restaurant to one particularly well-singing singer. Of course, the drag queen picked up on that and heckled the next singer: “The previous one got a rose thrown at her — you reckon you’ll get some fruit?” :)
After that, we were tired, so we took a taxi home and turned in for a good night’s sleep (remember those words: a good night’s sleep. See the next day for how that turned out…)
I like playing guitar. Not that I’m any good at it (despite classes), but it’s fun. Sometimes, it’s even awesome. For example, when you suddenly manage to produce something recognisably similar to this:
Yes, nowhere near as cool. I won’t guitar-play a drummer into ecstacy any time soon. But very, very, very cool nonetheless. Happy me! :)
PS: This version may be more appropriate — only guitar and Melissa. Failing a Melissa here, I will work on getting the guitar part sounding more reminiscent of this.
It’s Monday. Despite the Monday-y-ness of the day, you manage to arrive in the office before 9. Hooray! As usual, you turn on your PC and fetch some water to make some… hold on. Let’s try that again.
You turn on your PC… … you turn on your PC… … …
Okay, let me check the instructions for turning on the PC:
Unlike its usual effect of starting to whizz and burr happily, today this doesn’t even induce the slightest dissatisfied hiccup from my trusty old PC. Just a blinking orange light of the power button. Hmmms.
Fastforward a bit, and after opening two deprecated PCs hunting for a replacement power supply, we have to give up. Before I finished setting up one of those old PCs as my temporary PC, the man from computer support returns wielding… a new powersupply! Hoooraaaaaay!
Five minutes later, and I’m typing this. It took a while to hunt down, but I am seriously impressed by the speed with which local computer support got me back on track. So: a happy note to start the week!
As you know, I’ve been experimenting with the new Firefox. It’s quick, it washer whiter than white, and … it can be improved with a few tweaks.
Firefox 4 omits a feature I love: Browse By Name. That link explains it all, but I’ll recap it here.
In Firefox, you can type anything as the name of the website. Go ahead, try it! Open a new tab, and type “Hugo Jonker“. No “http://”, no “www”, no “.com”. Just a few words. What Firefox used to do, was to ask Google. If Google was sure what to answer, you were immediately redirected. If Google wasn’t so sure, you’d get a Google search for what you just typed.(*)
I was so impressed when I saw this. This was damned awesome! “Google knows” made reality — Google does know! Imagine my disappointment upon finding out that Firefox 4 broke this. It now always gives you a Google result page(*). Not cool.
Luckily, this is easily enough fixed — see the above link. Quick recap:
Tadaa, your Firefox works again — without needing Yet Another Plugin.
* Unless your internet provider is a dick that redirects all unresolved traffic to their own pages.
PS: Obviously, you can use other web services (Google search, Bing search, Yahoo, etc.– just search for “address bar search firefox” in your favourite search engine). But I love this “redirect-if-sure-otherwise-search” option, and I wanted it back. So now I do :)
Opening/closing tabs in firefox 4 is soooooooooooo cool! Your tabs slide into existence, and wink out again as the others slide over them.
Well, you know what? I’m typing this on a netbook, and this stuff hurts. Eyecandy is fine — if I don’t notice any downsides. Here, I do.
So: goodbye, animated tabs!
Short short version: about:config, browsers.tabs.animate = false. And surfing is good again :)